Kitten hitches a 85-mile ride in van

SANTA CRUZ, CALIF. - A kitten got a wild ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Santa Cruz on March 21 after it got stuck in a van's engine compartment.

The kitten made the 85-mile trip unharmed, according to Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter spokesman Todd Stosuy. Now, authorities are looking for its owner.

JON WELAND / SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL PHOTO

Animal control officer George DeLeon petsthe rescuedcat at the Santa Druz County Animal Shelter.

By Stephen Baxter

SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL

SANTA CRUZ, CALIF. — A kitten got a wild ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Santa Cruz on March 21 after it got stuck in a van’s engine compartment.

The kitten made the 85-mile trip unharmed, according to Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter spokesman Todd Stosuy. Now, authorities are looking for its owner.

“She’s a really sweet cat. Hopefully someone in Marin can come get her,” Stosuy said. “It was a long ride.”

A Michigan man in his late 20s was on a road trip when he slept in his white van outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Mill Valley, Calif..

The next morning, he got up and drove south to Santa Cruz. When he stopped at an Ocean Street gas station about 11:30 a.m., he heard the distinct sound of a cat’s meow.

He popped the hood and found a kitten — probably more startled than he was.

The female kitten appeared about 8 months old and had a blue studded collar with a blue bell. The driver said he had not stopped driving since he left Mill Valley.

“She is quite adorable and in very good shape, with no apparent injuries or illness,” John Reese, a spokesman for the Marin Humane Society, told the Marin Independent Journal. The humane society is providing a temporary home for the wayward feline at its Novato, Calif. shelter. “She is healthy and in full purr.”

The cat is a female “torbie,” with a mottled tan, brown and orange coat, somewhere between 8 months and a year old, Reese said.

The kitten had no identification tag and no microchip.

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